fergusteacherhttps://fergusteacher.wordpress.com
Thu, 22 Feb 2018 06:23:01 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/df3328df9f23912a1ba371f549868d06?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngfergusteacherhttps://fergusteacher.wordpress.com
Guided discovery and teacher fronting: Part 1https://fergusteacher.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/guided-discovery-and-teacher-fronting/
https://fergusteacher.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/guided-discovery-and-teacher-fronting/#respondMon, 07 May 2012 02:30:09 +0000http://fergusteacher.wordpress.com/?p=29In this post I’m going to try to outline the main aspects which define guided discovery and teacher fronting as approaches used within ELT teaching methodology. I’ll then go on to explore some examples and elaborate a little on their practical usage and application. But why choose to write a blog post on this topic? Well it seems that teacher fronting lends itself to what we might perceive as “teaching” before doing a course such as the CELTA and that guided discovery then satisfies our need to learn a ‘better way of doing it’.

So let me tackle each, one at a time. Guided discovery: While there may not be a huge quantity of studies devoted to outlining exactly what constitutes discovery learning and more over guided discovery, there seems to be a consensus as to what constitutes this approach in practice. A ‘nudge and a wink’ from a teacher rather than overt ‘here’s why’ tends to satisfy the guided discovery test. Students are invariably exposed to some sort of text (listening or reading) where they are guided towards making a generalisation or better put, observing a tendency about the language in the text. This normally involves a task instructing students to find instances of the target language and then to answer concept checking questions(which appear on the worksheet) which will go towards forming the acquisition of the language by the learner. This is where the student centered-ness of the approach lies. Students can be paired/grouped to work on hypothesising about the language while the teacher can take a step back.

To say there is no teacher interaction would of course be misleading. The teacher has selected the text, they have raised the ‘noticing questions to draw the learners attention towards noticing the language. Teachers can ‘take student’s brains by the hand’ to a greater or lesser degree. The most obvious example of how the teacher might do this would be to adapt a text to, as Thornbury puts it, ‘flood the text with a conspicuously high rate of target language.’ The learner must then complete a series of consciousness-raising activities usually something like “underline all the examples of xyz” in the text, there then follows a range of concept checking questions about the meaning/use of the language.

See the example below then listen to the short screencast video to listen how to use this sample

I will deal with teacher fronting the part 2 of this post later this week.

]]>https://fergusteacher.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/guided-discovery-and-teacher-fronting/feed/0fergusteacherGDThe planned obsolescence of ELThttps://fergusteacher.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/the-planned-obsolescence-of-elt/
https://fergusteacher.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/the-planned-obsolescence-of-elt/#respondMon, 23 Apr 2012 17:08:16 +0000http://fergusteacher.wordpress.com/?p=10I’ve been teaching for quite a few years now, I’ve taken my entry-level certification aswell as gained my DELTA. I’ve worked as teacher, trainer and have given a couple of seminars. I have arrived at this career after staring off as lawyer but I decided to dedicate to myself to something I felt more passionate about, namely, Language.

I chose to further my studies in ELT because i loved it. I wanted to share in a deeper and more meaningful way with those who sought to further themselves. I have met people whose motivations spanned from being forced to learn for some job or grant, to those who were interested in any kind of learning. It is a job that has inspired me to better myself and those who I have to opportunity to teach.

However, I do still have a bug bear. ELT while being one of the more innovative and diverse teaching arenas is so curtailed by its intrinsic financial constraints. At an estimate, 90% of ELT is at its core run as a business and a teaching institution second(As opposed to non-profit schemes e.g. public schooling, social outreach etc.). I have seen schools apathetically let highly trained and skilled educators leave their ranks because of a ‘what difference would it make the student won’t know any better’ attitude. English is a prized commodity in the world today. But as with all commodities in the world it one that is there to be consumed in the throw away fashion.

So do the schools, that students pay their hard-earned cash to, actually value their education, development and growth? I have worked in a few schools whose educational ethos was to the fore, so I know that they do exist. However the deluge of two-bit, so-called schools that drench anyone looking for real, lasting and sustainable language tuition almost makes the profession a laughing-stock or at a minimum less respected. Why? because it has money at its core and where there’s money there is a lack of trust.

I am not proposing a removal of money in ELT, how could I? I need my income as much as the next person. However there needs to be a movement by teachers to promote learning for the sake of development and not just financial income, after all that’s what education is about. The learners who progress are those who are inspired, an institution that puts little value in its pedagogical endeavour must be approached with the utmost caution